5 My One Last Shot

Sam stares down the gooey monster with a fierce glare, her emerald eyes showcasing a surprising amount of rage that leaves me floored. You'd almost think the Slime owed her money with the way she's staring at it...

The tension breaks in seconds flat and the slime lunges towards the young warrior with malicious intent.

"Dodge left," I offer a suggestion to test her footwork.

"Ugh!" She barely manages to pull it off, "Like that, Boss?"

"Your footwork is sloppy. Lead with your dominant foot and try it again. A Slime at this level is very simple-minded. It will attack using the same strategy over and over again if left alone. Let's make use of this and have you practice. Shall we?"

"We shall!" She grunts enthusiastically, beginning to play a complicated game with the blue goo. I watch her intently for several minutes, correcting any mistakes I notice as the warrior Princess weaves, leaps, and strafes her way out of danger. Just as before, she shows much more promise than I initially gave her credit for.

Maybe she really is my last shot at this...?

"That's good," I shake my head and interrupt my own train of thought, motioning with my hand for Sam to stop. Really need to stop thinking like such a sentimental old man... I'm not that old, dammit. "Let's back away for a moment and let it cool off while I teach you what to do next."

Together, we do just that.

"Slimes can be taken down in two blows by a sword. First, slice it in half. Doesn't matter how. Just do it. It will have no choice but to summon its core to regenerate the lost matter. That's when you strike it."

She cocks her head to the side, making her twintails fray in the slight breeze. "What if I just splatter it?"

"It could go everywhere, and you might not notice where the core appears. By the time you find it, it'll likely have fully regained its slime."

"Shit, good point." Sam nods her head up and down, taking mental notes on the proper technique. "Where's the core when it doesn't need it?"

"It's microscopic when not in use. It helps when you have a weakness for it not to be big or even visible. Not every monster understands that simple concept, but the humble slime sure does."

"Dork." She giggles.

"Yes, yes. Once the core appears, you just need to remove it somehow. Ah, also. When you attack, swing your sword like this, or like this." I show Sam some of the basic swinging techniques that I read about in a class guide to Great Bladers once upon a time. She picks up the proper way to do it after showing her a few times, but she stumbles her way around at first.

I can only help her so much- my experience is limited to what I've memorized in dusty tomes. While it's a bit far off to think about, Sam would genuinely benefit from a dedicated combat instructor if we can ever manage to find one who isn't too expensive.

After making damn well sure the Great Blader Princess knows how to swing her weapon of choice, we head on back to the Slime, which has since returned to... idling around, doing nothing but continuing its meaning. It turns to face Sam, looking at her with its big, round, cute-looking eyes.

"Do it," I warn her. "Whenever there's a chance to strike first, don't hesitate. Your enemy will never give you the same courtesy, whether it's a Slime or the Demon Lord himself."

Her body language becomes rugged and stiff for a moment in time, but she corrects it right away. Was it something I said? Odd. Regardless, Sam briefly looks over her shoulder to nod at me a single time in confirmation. She raises her sword into the air as if it weighed little to nothing at all and brings it down to the ground, where it slices the Slime clean two.

"Fuck yeah! I got it!" She grins and looks back at me- rookie mistake.

"SAM-"

Her eyes open wide from shock as I call out to her, and her head twists speedily back to face forward. The Slime's right half jumps toward her, attacking while its core appears to heal itself. "SHIT, SORRY-"

She corrects her mistake by punching the goo before it can latch onto her face, and it splatters against the gloved fist into a million tiny droplets of liquid. The small orange core falls limply to the ground, luckily in a dry spot. With no fluid left around it, the Slime can't shrink its core, and it'll die from oxygen exposure in a matter of minutes.

The battle against the Slime has been won definitively, and Sam learned a precious lesson in the process. "Don't take your fucking eyes off of the monster for a single second," I tell her as I comically bop her on her forehead.

"Ow-" She rubs the spot I lightly hit, "C'mon Boss, I did fuckin' good, and you know it."

"You performed well above my expectations," I tell her truthfully with a warm smile.

"Hell yeah! ...Wait, how low were your expectations, huh?" Sam glares as soon as she catches onto the implication I tacked on to my statement.

"It matters not," I adjust my glasses and turn away before looking back to give her a grin of my own. "You did well. I mean it."

The Princess stares at me, her face becoming a red, flushed mess as all of a sudden she finds it hard to maintain eye contact. Dropping her sword into the earth below, she leans on it with her elbow and begins twirling her lengthy blonde twin-tail with her free hand, "Damn straight," She mumbles, bearing an embarrassed frown on her youthful face.

"...You're getting Slime in your hair, Sam."

"Wha?" She takes her finger out of her twin-tail, noticing right then and there that she was using the hand which just punched the Slime. "SHIT!"

I find myself unable to control my laughter, and... it occurs to me this is the first time I've laughed in five years. I laughed while reading erotic comedy novels, or when remembering something from the past, sure... but... it was never like this.

Right now, I actually mean it.

...It feels good to mean things again.

After wiping her glove off on the grass below, "Gotta ask, though, Boss. How the fuck did you make it all so easy to understand? You don't strike me as an adventurer, but the shit you taught is legit."

"It may surprise you to learn that I read a lot. I studied many, many subjects to run the Guild as best I could. Of course, this includes numerous books on the different classes of adventurers. I had hoped that one day I'd be able to guide people such as yourself who were just starting out, but..."

"...But?"

"Not a whole lot in my life panned out the way I wanted it to. You've seen the Guild. Hell, just look at me." I scratch my head and sigh, knowing how ragged and sleep-deprived I must look from under the

Sam stares at me in silence until she crosses her arms and gives me a determined look. "Great. You got a big-ass brain and nowhere to use it, and me? Thinking ain't my strong suit. We make a perfect team, Boss. I already told you I need a place to crash from now on, and I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be than the Dewhurst Adventurer's Guild."

My face is surely stunned, but it has nothing on my poor little heart which beats from excitement. I take in Sam's words as she giggles in her typical tomboyish cadence, my chest growing heavy. She's none too bright. She's crude, a bit vulgar, and more than a little promiscuous... but...

I'm not going to last long if she really intends to stay by my side...

I turn away out of embarrassment. "We'll discuss the living situation later, Sam. For now, go grab the Slime's core and stash it away in here." I toss her a little pouch I kept carried in my pocket, and she catches it right out of the air.

"Stop fuckin' looking away, you pussy." Sam angrily stomps her foot while clutching her bag in her hand. "You're a man. Act like it! Do you want this hot, young piece of ass to live with you or not?"

"Sam, that's hardly a way for a Pr..." Her eyes open wide in panic as I begin to unintentionally speak the word. "-etty girl like you to behave. Not around someone like me, at least." Crisis averted, her face returns to default.

"Someone like you?" She tilts her head, not giving this up.

"Enough already. Are you going to kill the rest of those Slimes, or do I have to go home without you, Sam?"

"Home?" She catches my deliberate choice of words, and she smiles warmly at the thought.

"Home." I nod and watch the ecstatic girl pick up her weapon with a renewed spark of enthusiasm, eager to impress me for whatever reason and earn her place at my side.

I'm happy, sure, but I still don't know how I feel about this...